June 6, 2011

Monday:

So...we've started potty training Annabelle. Yes, I know, she's not even 9 months, but we trained Liam 'early', and I was reading a book by a 'child expert' who talked about potty training, and her suggestion on how to do it. When I read it, she actually suggests the same 'method' I used for training Liam at 15 months. And...she talks about starting training from 9-15 months! She later describes why to start at 9, and she says this is where babies are able to sit up freely without support usually. Well, Annabelle has been doing that for quite sometime, so we gave it a shot. The worst thing that happens is I clean up a few pees, and we go back to diapering. Which isn't all that bad, especially since we have all our diapers bought.

Today I was blown away! She peed twice and pooped once in the potty and NO messes! It's pretty amazing and I hope it keeps up. I think we may have caused some regression with the poop though. We were all in the living room in the evening and she was on the potty for a few minutes, and I was about to take her off, but then she started turning red faced and grunting, so me, Liam and Phillip all yelled 'YAY! POOP! POTTY!' etc, and she stopped and looked at us like we had came out of no-where and startled her. She did poop, but I don't know if she got it all out.

Here's how we are doing it. When she wakes up from a nap or in the morning, we go straight to the potty. She sits down for about 5 minutes or till she pees. While she is on it, I talk to her about 'we are going potty', and I show her the sign for potty. If she pees, me and Liam get all excited and clap and praise and whoop and holler (not too much as I've found she get's kinda frightened with too much of the whooping and hollering) and tell her, "Yay! You went potty!" and again sign the sign for potty.

If she doesn't pee, we just say, "Nope, no pee." And then go on with our day.

We do this again about 20-30 minutes after she drinks her milk. I usually leave her diaper off at this time as to try and 'catch' her peeing if she doesn't happen to be on the pot. If she doesn't pee in the 5 minutes after I've waited the 20-30 minutes, I'll put her back on after a little while.

It's pretty crazy. The 'child expert' lady says to find out the 'cues' your baby gives for needing to pee. I read this with Liam and I must be blind, because I've never figured out those 'cues' they all speak of. I think so far I'm just getting lucky with her the times she has gone. Maybe at some point, she will get the idea that pee goes in the potty. Who knows, but we shall see.